The Bedroom Chronicles
by KateCarter
Summary: Sometimes, you can't sleep. And when you can't sleep, you often end up thinking. This follows the thoughts of Beckett and/or Castle as they deal with the nights of insomnia. Marked as complete because I don't know how long this will go - it's a bunch of connected one-shots. Follow if you like it!
1. Lonely

The Bedroom Chronicles

_Each chapter will be able to be a stand-alone piece, so I'm marking this as complete, but please feel free to follow this so you can be updated when I add on to it. I will continue to add on when I have ideas that would work - I have three more chapters plotted at this point._

Time: Set sometime in the first two seasons.

**Chapter 1 - Lonely**

She never slept much when she had a case.

Murderers just didn't let you sleep. They were busy escaping, covering their tracks, possibly even endangering others. The further away you got from the murder, the less likely you would be to solve it. Hadn't she been working on her own mother's murder for years? But that one would get solved. It had to.

Now, Kate Beckett began the process of getting ready for bed. The murderer had been caught - the victim's tenant. They'd figured it was likely a tenant; the victim was the landlord of a large apartment building, known for raising rates, charging people for everything imaginable and just generally being an asshole - a murderee, someone who was basically asking for someone else to snap and kill him. The problem was, a hundred people with motive meant you had to narrow down those who had the opportunity - not that bashing a guy over the head with a golf club took a lot of opportunity. But it had taken time to track down the right killer, and they had only caught him because Castle had noticed the one who had been nervously doodling with his left hand - and since a left-handed golf club had killed the vic...

Castle. Beckett sighed as she removed her badge, set her sidearm down on the table, placed the handcuffs next to it. The man was so...so...

_Sexy?_ her mind supplied.

Irritating!

He could be smug and annoying, following her around like some kind of lost dog. Always poking his nose in, getting in the way, asking questions, making juvenile comments, acting like she couldn't get her own coffee, grinning at her, locking his gaze with hers, sharing her excitement as she put the clues together, sitting and watching her as she stared at the murder board, his hand lightly brushing hers as he handed her a coffee or a pen or whatever...it was funny how often he seemed to brush against her when he handed something to her.

Shirt and pants were thrown towards the hamper in the corner. She pulled on an old T-shirt and a pair of flannel shorts - she had no need for fancy lingerie or silky nightgowns, not now - and turned towards her bed, too tired to bother brushing her teeth or washing her face or doing any of the normal nighttime rituals. It wouldn't hurt to skip it for once.

She wondered what Castle wore when he slept.

Whoa...where had that thought come from? Kate shook her head, trying to clear it, and crawled into bed. Her big, empty bed.

Her lonely bed.

And as it did from time to time, the loneliness of her situation hit her like a brick in the stomach. This was what happened, every night. She crawled into bed alone. She curled up by herself, with blankets to warm her and not much else - certainly no companion in her bed. She went to sleep alone, she woke up alone. True, there was no one to waken her with snoring or moving or doing any of the unpleasant things that people tend to do when they share a bed with you. She could stretch out as she wanted. She could wear old shirts and flannel pants all the time and not worry about how her breath smelled. It wasn't all bad.

She had no one to wake her up. No one to exchange delicious, sleepy kisses with. No pair of eyes crinkled in happiness at her as she opened hers in the morning. No warm body encircled hers on cold nights. No one made slow, gentle love to her.

_Castle would be the type to do that, _her mind whispered. She shook her head, a physical response to the mental statement. She couldn't think about Castle. Not like that.

_Why not?_ her mind prodded.

Because I work with him!

_No, you don't,_ her mind insisted. _He observes you. Occasionally he contributes something. But you don't work with him. He's not on the city's payroll._

Still. As long as he was observing her, she had to keep her distance. She faced dangerous situations every day. What if something happened? To her? To him?

No, she decided. Nothing could ever happen between her and Rick Castle. She'd just have to repress those feelings, avoid going there.

Continue going to bed alone.


	2. Empty

Empty

This is definitely season 1, right before "Always Buy Retail" (1x06) - didn't intend that to happen, but it did.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed this story! I had forgotten what a thrill it is to look in my inbox and see those there! The others probably won't be following as fast, I'm still working on watching season 4 and after that I'll probably start from the beginning all over again and work on this as well as another series I'm devising.

Richard Castle couldn't sleep.

He tossed and turned, tangling himself in his sheets. It was a pity that sheets with such an insanely high thread count couldn't come with a guarantee of easy sleep. First he was too hot. Then he was too cold. He poked one leg out from under the sheet, hoping it would magically provide the right body temperature, but all it gave him was one cold leg and one hot leg. He laid on his back. He rolled onto his side. Flipped onto the other side. Laid on his stomach. Buried his face in the pillow. Realized he couldn't breathe. Popped his head back up and stared at the wall grouchily. He didn't need to look at the clock to know that the first digit was 3.

Finally, as he often did on sleepless nights, he got out of bed. Softly padding down the hallway, he laid his hand on the doorknob and pushed it gently until the door creaked open. He stood there momentarily, frozen, until he was reassured it hadn't disturbed the sleeping figure of his daughter in her bed. He tiptoed over and stood beside her, watching her curled up on her side in slumber. He never got tired of watching his daughter sleep. Even now, she was such a miracle to him - the perfect combination of traits from him and her mother, all the right things, the good things. Alexis was a marvel.

As he stood there, he became aware of a shift in her breathing. A second later, a sleepy eye appeared. "Dad?" Alexis asked drowsily. "What are you doing? Is something wrong?"

He smiled. "Nothing's wrong, Alexis. I just wanted to check that you were okay. Father's prerogative." He leaned over and caressed her shoulder. "Go back to sleep," he said softly.

"Okay," she mumbled, and within seconds her breathing had resumed the deep, steady rhythm. He snuck out of the room and closed the door behind him, wincing again as the door squeaked. Something would have to be done about that.

He wandered into the kitchen, got a drink. Looked in the fridge for food but didn't see anything immediately appealing. Castle finished the water and set the glass down in the sink, checked the fridge again (what was the human instinct that caused people to check refrigerators to see if good food had magically appeared when they knew it hadn't, he wondered), and headed for the study.

A press of a button and the laptop's warm glow welcomed him. In the past, he had gone browsing on the fansites when he was feeling insomniac. Very rarely, he had found his way to the fanfiction sites, where the examples of Derrick Storm's adventures often caused him to shudder and then spend time typing out a chapter of an actual Derrick Storm adventure - an avenue that was now closed to him. Now, he was all about "Nikki Heat" and her real inspiration, Detective Kate Beckett.

On impulse, he typed Beckett's name into the web search. A page of links came up, most referring to articles about the solving of murders. One featured a picture of her, and he stared at it. She was photographed coming out of a courthouse, wearing a conservative suit with a skirt. The heels she favored made her long legs look even longer and the smile she gave the camera showed the confidence she possessed. This picture perfectly captured the outward Beckett that he had come to know - the one he suspected wasn't the real Beckett. No, he had caught glimpses of the real Kate Beckett, and she was a much different person from her outward "tough cop" demeanor.

The real Kate Beckett, Castle suspected, was softer. She would be the type to enjoy a glass of wine and a bubble bath, to wear old sweats after work, to curl up on the couch with a good book (possibly one with his name on the cover) rather than turning on the TV. She would be a delightful person to know - but he had the feeling that getting there would be a long process. It would take a lot for Kate Beckett to let anyone past her tough outer shell. He suspected he wasn't off to the best of starts, either - but at least it was a start.

He sat and stared at the picture for a few minutes, memorizing the curves of her face, the quirk of her mouth, the almost haughty self-possession in her eyes, in a way he could never manage in real life - she would never allow him to stare at her this long. Finally, with a sigh, he realized he had to attempt to go to sleep again. He reached his hand out to close the lid of the laptop, hesitated, and drew it back. His hand rested lightly on the wireless mouse before it positioned the cursor over the picture, clicked the right mouse button, and hit "Save Image As..."

That done, he stood up, closed the laptop, and walked back down the hallway. His mother was snoring again. If he mentioned it to her, she would protest that Martha Rodgers did NOT snore. The thought caused the side of his mouth to tug up into an almost-smile.

He slipped back into bed, his mind still stuck on Kate - no, Beckett. If he allowed himself to think of her as Kate, he was putting himself too close to her. Maintain distance. Right. He was just the annoying writer that was shadowing her until...until what? Until the book was finished? Until she got sick of him and kicked him out? Until something happened? It was a dangerous profession these people were in. He really should be careful about this; what if something happened to him? What would Alexis do? His mother would take care of her, but that was an idea that made him shudder. Maybe he should buy one of those bulletproof vests. Maybe he should ask Kate where he could get one.

_Beckett!_

He sighed as he turned onto his side, staring at his empty bed. That was the problem, right there - why he couldn't sleep. Richard Castle liked to think of himself as a fairly manly man, despite having only lived with females his entire life. But he was willing to admit, he wanted someone to snuggle up to at night. Someone whom he could pull into his arms. Pink lips that he could caress with his own, that would respond with equal fervor. Brown hair that spilled across the pillow...he groaned. This was not making it easier to sleep. How could he want this woman so bad when he barely knew her? When she would never allow him to get to know the real her?

Something would have to be done about his empty bed.

He just didn't have a clue what.


End file.
